Month: March 2017

You may have seen the colorful little orbs on the shelves of the checkout stand of your favorite grocery store as you wait patiently to pay for your goodies. You may have even tried one of the fruity flavors for yourself, but do you know how this magical balm became the second best selling lip balm in the country?

EOS or Evolution of Smooth products started making their debut in Walgreens, Walmart, and Target about seven years ago. Their Easter egg appearance stood out amongst the tubes of Chapstick we have seen for decades. Soon these pastel colored orbs made their way into fashion magazines and the makeup arsenals of celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus, the public soon followed loving the unique colors, shape, and flavors they could not get anywhere else.

Sanjiv Mehra, EOS co-founder, and managing partner says the small startup chose to focus on creating products and distributing them versus building up information about themselves. Currently selling over 1 million units a week and projected to increase steadily to $2 billion by 2020. Specializing in natural and organic products (like this one; https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Smooth-Strawberry-Passion-Honeydew/dp/B009QTDYYA) they have become a forerunner in the global lip care market.

In a world of cylindrical tubes of monotonous lip balms, they created a fun, delicious, easy to find in the bottom of your bag, lip care solution that the women love. You can read more about this journey to the top here.

Dick DeVos is the founder and Chairman of The Windquest Group, a special business investment company he founded over 25 years ago. He’s also the husband of Betsy DeVos, the new Secretary of Education picked by President Trump. As a business leader Dick and Betsy have made their share of money, but they’ve also given a lot of it back to Grand Rapids and non-profit groups. They are staunch Republican Party activists, but they’ve only contributed a small percentage of their overall gifts to political candidates over the years. The DeVos’s decided it was time to shed a little light on their lifetime giving in light of Betsy’s confirmation, and the reports estimate that giving to be around $139 million.

Dick DeVos began his business career at the company his father co-founded, Amway Corporation. Dick’s father, Richard DeVos Sr. was a key supporter of former President Gerald R. Ford and is also the current owner of the NBA’s Orlando Magic. Amway Corporation is a multilevel marketing company that’s helped people go into business for themselves through reselling various household and health and beauty products. Dick was a company manager for several years until he became vice president of operations. He left the company briefly and founded The Windquest Group and ran for the Michigan State Board of Education, but then returned and took over as CEO of Amway. He held that position for 10 years until stepping down to run only The Windquest Group.

Dick and Betsy have made education one of their first priorities in philanthropy. They saw the desire that many lower income families had to send their children to private and charter schools that they couldn’t afford, and through the DeVos Foundation Dick and Betsy funded scholarships for these families. They tried to take it a step further by lobbying for state legislature for tax credits and private school vouchers but came up short. They are also charter school supporters that helped grow charter schools in the state through the Great Lakes Project.

In addition to education, Dick DeVos has given to many civic organizations and sat on the board of committees such as Grand Action, a committee that led a redevelopment project for downtown Grand Rapids. He’s also given to several children’s hospitals and is the honorary recipient of the Spectrum Health Foundation Art of Giving Award. He’s also helped fund arts foundations such as ArtPrize, and also made a large donation to the Kennedy Center’s Institute for Arts Management that was renamed in his and Betsy’s honor. Dick DeVos was also a former candidate for governor in the 2006 race, and also was instrumental in the passing of a 2012 right-to-work law. He’s the author of the 1998 New York Times bestseller Rediscovering American Values.